2014 (!?!) and a long overdue update!

Well, I hadn't planned on basically taking a 3 month hiatus as soon as I started the blog but moving into our house and the holidays didn't really give me any free time (Duh...I guess any normal person would have realized this)! I had had grandiose plans of updating the blog every few days with what progress we had made but, as with most moves and renovations, many unforeseen situations popped up and I just had a million other things on my plate.
SO... now that it is the New Year and we more settled (sort of) I am making more of an effort on blog updates. Today I thought I would start with just a high level overview of what's been happening the past 2 months.
We closed on the house at the very end of October. It was a long time coming and we were very happy. It was funny because after going through the set backs we had gone through up to that point Jon said he felt like there should have been fireworks or a parade at our closing... not the half hour signing papers at the bank. It was a very anti-climactic ending. :) But as you can see below, we were ok with that.

We didn't move in to the house right away. We wanted to paint and work on a few things before moving all our stuff in. We thought a week or two at max...but then we got the bright idea to completely renovate the only bathroom with a shower...on our own...And of COURSE that took a lot longer than we anticipated as well. So we didn't officially start living there until about the first or second week in December. And that was only once the shower was usable! The bathroom still wasn't completely done at that point. ANYWAY, all that to say that it has been a hectic 3 months with moving, the holidays, regular life, etc...So I thought I would just share a few 'before' photos of some of the first things we focused on in the house and really get into individual room posts in the coming weeks.

This is the before photo of the family room. Wood paneling everywhere. We aren't fans so we painted over it. We were a little worried about just painting over it as opposed to tearing it down but are very happy with the results.

The photo below is of the 3 season room that is (was) off the back of the house, attached to the family room. You can see it in the above photo. The photo below is part way through demolition. Unfortunately, the room needed to come down because it was built poorly and was falling apart. It was way cheaper to just get rid of it than try and fix it. No worries. It will make a nice stop for a deck one day :)

The next two photos are of the main bathroom. The first is a 'before'. Pretty outdated. Some tiles were falling out in the bathtub and the bathtub was wayyyyy too small for my liking. I like a deeper tub to soak in :). I was sort of digging the floor title but since we were gutting everything else, the floor kinda had to go too. Jon redid the whole thing by himself (well, with a little help from my dad or his brothers on occasion) and I am so proud of him! Can't wait to share the after photos!

When we got to this point I was a little worried. I think he was too. :) No turning back now!

And of course we have been spending a TON of time in Lowes and Home Depot. But mostly Lowes. I guess we are more Lowes kind of people..... whatever that means :)

We still have SO MUCH to do but we are really happy with what we have accomplished so far. Looking forward to sharing some of the progress we have made!